Yosef Navon (Hebrew: יוסף נבון; 1858–1934) was a Jerusalem businessman and the man principally responsible for the construction of the Jaffa–Jerusalem railway.
[1] Navon married Guishe Frumkin, who had been born in the Russian Empire and moved to the Yishuv with her family as a child.
On October 28, 1888, he received a 71-year concession from the Ottoman authorities that also gave him permission to extend the line to Gaza and Nablus.
In 1878, Navon and his uncle, Haim Amzallag, helped purchase the ground for the construction of Petah Tikva, as well as Rishon LeZion in 1882.
They also built homes for new immigrants from Yemen and the poor in Jerusalem, creating demand in the lands which the bank owned.
He never returned to Jerusalem, and after a 1901 meeting with Theodor Herzl about development in the Yishuv, which the latter was not impressed with, Navon stopped his activity in the region.